


Wishing for peace

by WahlBuilder



Category: Mars: War Logs
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, New Year's Eve, Pining, Technomantic Culture, a whole pine forest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:53:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28528782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: Roy usually keeps away from cities and towns during the New Year celebrations, but this time something compels him to come to Shadowlair.
Relationships: Roy/Tenacity Williams
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	Wishing for peace

Everything is very loud during the New Year celebrations then in all possible ways—but in Shadowlair, it’s not only about that. It’s one of holidays that doesn’t require formal Technomantic presence—but they are Technomancers, and they can’t _not_ dance, can’t _not_ sing. People also come to the Source, some for a blessing, some for other kinds of help and guidance.

In the Source, around this time, it is—

He tries not to dwell on memories, yet it’s difficult. So he keeps away from towns.

He can’t tell what has compelled him to come to Shadowlair this time. The city is overwhelming, as is expected, the train station full to bursting. For a moment, it’s almost good rather than painful: Roy almost loses himself in all the people. Then someone jostles him, apologising on the way, and he’s back in his own body. Getting more and more annoyed by the noises and the press of people.

He slinks into quieter parts—as much as any part can be quiet during this time. He rambles the back alleys of Tierville, the towering presence of the Source like a breath on his nape. The axle that the city spins around and needs to be able to move and grow.

He goes to the exit of an alley but stands just on the edge of stepping onto the street—when he notices Temperance.

Temperance is difficult not to notice, towering over most people: they give the giant hound a lot of space. He wears no harness: Tenacity dislikes them. Most people handling dogs in professional capacity remove spines to fit the harness properly, and Tenacity is firmly against that. Roy assumes that it can be clearly seen that Temperance isn’t a stray, isn’t feral. He walks calmly, looking around but not distracted by anything. Noting everything. Like Tenacity does.

Temperance pauses, lifting his head, then trots faster to Roy, chittering and clacking as he goes.

Roy scratches between the edges of carapace plates. ‘Hey. Having a walk all on your own?’

Temperance tickles his hands with antennae, then backs away, clacking his jaws.

‘What is it? You want me to follow?’ Roy isn’t very good with animals. He can feel them but determining the meaning of what he feels is even more difficult than understanding what he feels in humans.

Temperance makes another step back.

‘Alright, lead on. Is something wrong with Tenacity?’ Though it’s strange that Temperance would come to Tierville for help.

Temperance leads him further _into_ Tierville, however. Loud markets turn to streets decorated with colourful ribbons and lanterns, with big houses that in the Sands would shelter half a dozen families and here are occupied by just one.

The house Temperance ultimately brings Roy to, is the only undecorated one in the street. Silent and dark, it stands like a closed grave, attracting scorn from a smartly-dressed passer-by. To Roy, the house is perhaps more disturbing than these neighbours imagine, through its almost complete lack of life, aside from one quiet spark.

Roy knows this house, he’s been here before a couple of times. He knows that, unless Tenacity decides to turn it into some other purpose, this house will never know life. Tenacity won’t live in it.

Roy opens the door with his own key. Inside, it is chilly and dusty. Roy didn’t like this place the first time he ended up here, and he dislikes it even more now, amid the festivities. There is hollowness in it, a vacuum that sucks out all warmth from any visitor.

Temperance closes the door and gets up the stairs in leaps. Roy follows. They pass the door leading to the master bedroom, then the one which Roy knows it the office, and go to the last door.

Temperance nudges it open with his head.

There’s no light anywhere in the house, but Temperance doesn’t need it, and Roy doesn’t either.

This room doesn’t have the same dusty smell of the rest of the house, but still there’s emptiness filling it, hanging over all items. They are old and well-loved: a champion’s belt on a rack by a wall, a pincer’s claw on the desk serving as a prop for books, a wardrobe with half-open doors... It’s full of luxury many people in Shadowlair wouldn’t even imagine.

It’s also rather... conservative. Not through the wishes of this room’s once-owner, but rather through the affinities of the previous master of the house, Roy thinks.

He pushes these analytics away and goes over to the big bed that dominates the room. Tenacity looks uncharacteristically small, curled up on it, under an old thick duvet. Silent.

‘Tenacity,’ Roy says quietly. He knows Tenacity isn’t asleep.

Temperance gets on the bed—it groans under his weight—and flops down just under Tenacity’s feet, lowering his head on his front paws.

‘May I lie down with you?’

‘Suit yourself,’ comes the muffled reply.

So Roy does. He takes his boots off, then climbs on the bed. It’s too soft compared to what he is used to. He’d like to slide under the duvet, touch Tenacity, but he’s not certain he can, now. So he moves close, but doesn’t press himself to Tenacity. He closes his eyes and listens. He follows the beating of Tenacity’s heart, a bit faster than usual. He follows the rush of Tenacity’s blood. He listens to the bones, to muscles contracting, listens to—

Breathing. Punctuated by sharp gasps of pain.

Usually, he wouldn’t do this, not with Tenacity. He can’t help hearing Tenacity’s heartbeat, or his breathing—but he restrains himself, not allowing himself to go deeper, to try to puzzle out what’s in Tenacity’s head, to find where his bones were ever fractured, how his ribcage moves...

But right now, Tenacity is in pain. And when he’s in pain, he usually ignores it until it can’t be ignored, finds a hiding hole and suffers in silence. Just like this.

Roy traces Tenacity’s body, not with a hand, but with his senses, comparing its current state to what he can’t help but remember from other times, better times. He knows he’s pushing their relationship right now: Tenacity is probably aware he’s doing _something_ —but to call Roy out on this would mean calling him out on everything else, and that would probably lead to the end of their relationship. Tenacity, as far as Roy guesses, hates Technomancers.

But Tenacity doesn’t say anything, and Roy finds the source of pain under Tenacity’s left shoulder blade and in his liver. They are not connected in reasons, but judging by the severe flares of nerves, both must be quite intense.

Roy has intruded—but he can’t do it further without permission. ‘Let me help.’

‘S nothing.’

‘Were I to dismiss you thus, would you fuck off? Stubborn, you are.’ Roy rolls onto his back, listens to the steps outside in the street, looks at the ceiling, then turns his head to Tenacity and kisses his nape.

Tenacity exhales shakily. ‘You think it _is_ serious,’ he grumbles. ‘You talk like that only when shit’s really serious.’

Roy strokes Tenacity’s arm. The touch, even though through the thick duvet and a shirt, is a shock to Roy himself. He hasn’t been around people for a long time.

He hasn’t seen Tenacity for even longer. He can admit, in his head, that he missed Tenacity.

‘Talk like what?’

‘Like yourself. It’s really nothing.’

He wants to do something inadvisable, like bite Tenacity’s ear. ‘I’ll make you noodle soup if you behave like a good boy,’ he says instead.

Tenacity huffs. ‘You’re negotiating as though with Ranny.’

‘You two are a lot alike.’ He can hear that Tenacity’s heart picks up more pace. He can hear how nerves send signals of pain to Tenacity’s brain. _Something is wrong. Help. You need help._

He grips Tenacity’s arm. The duvet won’t hide its familiar shape. He shan’t beseech. There is only waiting.

Tenacity sighs. ‘Alright.’

‘Remove your shirt.’

‘Ranny, off. And thanks for finding Roy.’

Temperance slides off the bed with a huff, obviously not amused by Tenacity’s stubbornness.

Roy shrugs off his own jacket, puts it on a chair nearby, pushes the duvet to the foot of the bed. ‘Lie down on your side, your back to me, like before.’

Tenacity moves with obvious difficulty, and the lack of more grumbling tells Roy that he’s, indeed, in enough pain that it makes him unwilling to put up further resistance. Roy won’t offer his help with divesting. Tenacity is a proud person. There is a welt diagonal on his back, fresh enough that it’s still burning with pain—there is always something new between their meetings. The two clusters of pain Roy noticed before are worse than this, however, so Roy won’t focus on this long line of hurt now.

Tenacity lies down, curling up on himself. He’s big, he always is, but right now, he’s a big mound of ache.

Roy moves to him, closer. Tenacity shivers, his back tense, and his heartbeat all but _races_. Roy slides a hand under his waist and around, resting his palm on Tenacity’s abdomen, and strokes the old long scar. Tenacity squirms.

‘Ticklish?’

‘No. Just…’ Tenacity doesn’t say anything else, but Roy understands to not repeat the motion.

He presses his other palm to the area of pain on Tenacity’s back. It’s hot to the touch. Then he rests his forehead against Tenacity’s nape and closes his eyes. ‘You will feel a vibration under your skin,’ he tells Tenacity. ‘Think of something good. It shall be well.’

Then, he starts singing. He sings with his voice, not only his Technomancy, to let Tenacity know that _something_ is going on, but Roy barely hears it himself: his focus is entirely on the workings of Tenacity’s body.

He sheds his own: leaves his body behind, abandoning it easily, forgetting about it by stretching his awareness into Tenacity’s body, following his heartbeat, his hitching breaths. They are one and the same. The key is to not forget his own voice in all this—even though he always wants to. He does hear himself—not the voice, but Technomancy, a thick vibrating chord that doesn’t end, a chorus of one. He spreads it through Tenacity’s body, changing it minutely as he finds resonance with various parts of it, as he finds its rhythms, some already familiar, some novel to him.

There is lots of pain, discordant screams all throughout, most unheeded, brushed away. He soothes as he goes, looking for the worst, the loudest.

One is easy: a cluster of overworked muscles. He sings to ease tension, to lull nerves, to soothe. It’s gradual work, but he has all the time in the world, his song has no beginning and no end. When the worst is disappeared, he leaves it to sing itself, and looks for the other screams. These, are worse. They almost drown him out. He makes himself quieter, to squeeze past waves of loudness—and finds something that shouldn’t be here.

He screams in rage, and it’s enough to destroy these small clusters. He will have to stay vigilant for them. Then he moves to the source of pain, but, carried by his anger, he has to make himself sing more tenderly again. He does send waves of angry trills to attack what needs to be attacked, but soothes the rest. It takes him longer than the previous area but he is in no rush.

When everything has started remembering its proper rhythms and tunes, he journeys back to himself. He knows echoes of his voice will linger in Tenacity for a while, yet the gradual separation brings him sorrow. To be confined in himself again, to only have vague guesses about the other to help him understand—it’s unbearable.

However, he can’t stay linked without permission. He will never do that.

So he follows twined heartbeats, Tenacity’s and his own, follows his Technomancy, follows his own flow of blood, his own rate of cell-splitting, his own flares of synapses—his and Tenacity’s rhythms are untwining already.

He feels his own weight separate from Tenacity’s, the shape of his own body different from Tenacity’s—but their breathing is in the same rhythm still, their heartbeats are the same. It brings him a measure of consolation for his grief, a hope that understanding is still possible, even as he is confined in a body he doesn’t quite know what to do with.

He slides both arms around Tenacity as their breathing becomes asynchronous. Tenacity is heated all over, covered in sweat, but...

‘Roy.’ Tenacity’s whisper is barely there.

In a moment, he will let go. The grief of separation will ease out, and he will let go...

Tenacity’s hand covers his. Neither squeezes nor pushes away, but shares his heat.

There is love. Love is a fact. It can take many forms, can be given many names: the cause and effect, the life persistent, the instinct to create, the instinct to commune—the most powerful of them all; a cry out for help. The song each creature, each being, each _thing_ sings. Love doesn’t only fill the universe—it _is_ the universe.

Roy’s singing is one facet, one manifestation of it. To sing a body into a state with less suffering is to fill it with love. Roy might not be able to hold a dispute right now, but this he knows for a fact—this, he _feels_.

Love is a terrible thing to someone who doesn’t want to have ever existed. But he’s here, and his duty is easing of pain, his duty is creation, connection.

‘Need water?’ Tenacity asks quietly. He sounds as though something is lodged in his throat.

Roy feels his callouses and small scars on his fingers, hears his uneven breaths. ‘In a moment.’ Taking care of himself is his duty also, if only to help himself carry out other duties better.

Shouts erupt outside and Tenacity startles. ‘Fuck.’ He sighs and runs a hand over his face. ‘Sorry, Roy.’ He leaves the embrace, pads to the shutters and closes them.

Roy rolls onto his back and throws a hand over his eyes. Connecting on a level of bloodstreams and heartbeats is one thing—but it’s not… human. Tenacity doesn’t speak his languages of electric currents and solar songs.

‘Hey, Roy. Hey.’ The mattress dips, and Roy hears Tenacity getting closer. ‘It doesn’t hurt anymore, Majesty.’

Maybe not physically, Roy thinks. ‘I promised you noodle soup.’

‘Let _me_ make it for us instead.’

Roy allows his hand fall to the side, and opens his eyes. Tenacity is so close, propped on the elbows above him. Maybe someone else would consider it seductive—Roy only aches.

He isn’t certain how much Tenacity sees of him, especially with the window closed. Tenacity has good night vision, but Roy knows that non-Technomancers see only shapes.

Sometimes Roy wonders what it would be, if they had swapped fates. He doesn’t want to not be a Technomancer—this is the one part of his existence, his being that he will never reject and never regret. But as a mental exercise...

He wraps his arms around Tenacity, and Tenacity kisses him. It isn’t a shock only because he’s been even closer with Tenacity moments ago—yet it’s different. Softer, warmer, imperfect. Something that he can’t sing into existence, can’t even make last. But like other things, it’s part of the whole—of all this. Whatever it is that they have.

He moves his hands up Tenacity’s back, appreciating muscles and mourning scars, then he buries his fingers in Tenacity’s lush mane. Tenacity breaks the kiss, pushing his head into Roy’s hand. There were such kisses before—they don’t become any less of a wonder to Roy.

He scratches the back of Tenacity’s head and smiles. ‘I’m glad you’re feeling better.’

‘All thanks to you.’ Tenacity kisses his wrist.

Roy barely stops himself from pulling Tenacity’s hair: this kiss is almost too much. ‘Show me the kitchen. And put a shirt on: you might cramp otherwise.’

Tenacity grumbles and backs away. Temperance is already there holding a shirt in his mouth. Tenacity grumbles again and puts it on. The welt on his back is still visible. Roy could push Tenacity’s body further, but he wouldn’t. Not without explaining what he can do—an explaining he can’t give.

Tenacity offers him a hand, and Roy gets off the bed.

His field is touched by a familiar burst of energy: a celebratory rush. ‘We have to have something sweet also. For the new year.’

Tenacity chuckles. ‘Oh, I know something sweet. Peace in the new year, Roy _bach_!’

He smiles. ‘Peace.’


End file.
